I just got back from judging and refereeing a big karate tournament and although I didn’t compete, I’m exhausted. Still, it was pretty exciting as a lot of the kids from my dojo did well against the other dojos. There were people from all over the world there, it was awesome! What does that have to do with Deadman Wonderland? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I’m just tired and want to complain.

Ganta is being a typical…Ganta…and running to Senji crying his eyes out. He begs the six-packed sex machine (I need to trademark that) to teach him how to allow his Branch of Sin to surpass the speed of sound, to which Senji miraculously agrees. If he can break past Senji’s own supersonic blade and get his last candy, he wins. If he doesn’t, then his death sentence shall be swiftly carried out by the collar. It’s do or die time.

As Ganta tries to get serious and hone his Ganta bullet, Shiro is getting drunk off of chocolate and stumbling around like a lunatic. In her inebriated state, she decides that the best course of action at the moment would be to find Ganta and punch him. Yes, what a brilliant idea! Off she pops to find Ganta while Toto tries to follow her in mild amusement.

PMS is a scary thing, especially if you come between a woman and her chocolate

Toto walks in on Ganta’s training looking for Shiro, but she’s nowhere to be found. Taking this as a detour, the strange Deadman twirls around the room and starts…licking people. It’s hard to believe such a fruitcake is the proclaimed “strongest Deadman ever” in the prison. After giving everyone a good scare and haphazardly showing off his skills, he frolics away to let Ganta continue his training.

Once he starts to collapse from anemia, Senji calls it quits. Unwilling to give up, Ganta fires yet another Ganta Gun attack. On account of most of his blood being located on the walls instead of in his veins where it should be, the bullet is needle-thin. However, anorexic bullets are apparently the key to breaking the sound barrier! Gratz!

The whole time Ganta has been training to get stronger, the Scar Chain gang were plotting their final attempt to escape. They lie about the meting time to Ganta so as to not involve him any further and begin their plan. Karako bravely sneaks in amongst the guards in their strange body suits. All is well until Shiro suddenly appears in the circle of guards, unable to navigate the air ducts properly while under the influence. Karako tries to usher her away, only to be found out by Genkaku as soon as she opens her mouth. Dat Kansai accent. Genkaku captures them both and gloats to the Scar Chain gang and Ganta over the TV to try and provoke them.

Enraged, Ganta runs off to save Karako and Shiro despite not knowing where the hell they are. The rest of the Scar Chain gang use this as a chance to escape to avenge Karako, who is currently being held down by the guards as Genkaku waits for the perfect moment to kill her. After some help from Minatsuki, Ganta finds his way into the right room to save Shiro and Karako. He launches a rain of blood bullets right off the bat and takes out the guards, even with their Worm Eaters equipped.

A couple of bullets and Ganta is already spent. He must have only 1/3 of his blood left or something. Shiro runs off to “protect” Ganta, but ends up getting her kneecaps crushed into paste by Daida’s huge sword. Yep, she’s back! And that’s not the only new threat. Genkaku proudly opens the door to reveal Nagi in his awakened state of insanity, driven mad by the superfluous use of blue filters and dark lighting. Oh, and his daughter that he thought was alive somewhere was killed. There’s no use talking Nagi out of this frenzied state. He starts blowing things up with his blood orbs and generally going batshit. And thus begins a very, very one-sided battle.

Bonus Screenshots:

Grade A evidence that no man is too manly for chapstick.

Bitch, I don’t even REMEMBER you. We know your backstory, shouldn’t you die soon, or something?

Gah, stupid webcam, stay put! Man, taking profile pics is hard…

Oh, chocolate, you’re so funny.

End Thoughts: Is it just me, or were there actual glimpses of good animation in there? It’s still incredibly inconsistent and often sidetracks back to Derpy Town every now and then, but some of the action looked pretty good! Nagi’s insanity mode was actually quite detailed! If only they stopped cutting corners and focused on keeping this quality. I swear Ganta looked like 5 different people this episode because of how they keep scrunching and unscrunching his face in different scenes. Ah well, glad to see some animation highlights now and then!

But picking on Deadman’s animation is like kicking a kid in a wheelchair, so I’ll stop. In fact, let’s actually applaud Deadman for having a good episode! The pacing wasn’t ridiculous like the past few episodes. They took some time to show Ganta training for a bit and only just started a major battle. This means all of episode 12 can be one giant battle royale, which is a good move for a series that relies on violence to draw attention. Well played, well played. With the addition of the Crow fanservice, I might have to give this episode a gold star!

I’m really curious about Toto. I want to see how the hell this vicious Deadman fights and if there’s some sort of split personality there much like Shiro. I wouldn’t be surprised if Toto jumps in at the last minute, slaughters almost everyone, and then Shiro reverts to Red Man mode when Toto tries to kill Ganta. Everything is bloody, everyone is depressed, and the shows ends off explaining nothing. The end!

Preview: Next up is the heated battle with Daida, Nagi and the crazy monk against Ganta, Karako and whoever else manages to jump in. I would be very surprised if Mocking bird doesn’t pop in for a little “visit.” The last episode will be a bloody one that will send the series out with a bang, probably leaving a bunch of unanswered questions at the expense of GUTS ON THE FLOOR.

I actually was thinking the opposite in terms of animation. The stylized stuff with Toto and Nagi looks cool, but everything else appeared much more “cheap” in my opine as I was watching the ep (moreso than any other episode in the series to date). Content-wise, I enjoyed it enough to where I’m wanting to buy Vol. 1 of the manga.

If episode 12 is indeed a battle royale, then I guess I should prepare for a “Black Light” censor special.

Whew, it’s good to be back. I was without internet for nearly 5 weeks. It was unspeakable torture.

This was a really good episode especially with the tension development then again with the damn cliffhanger. Quit doing that!!!

At the beginning when Ganta was crying his eyes out, he reminded me of Naruto when he was a kid before he decided to man up and become more mature. The only difference, and thank God for it, is that he’s not chasing people like Naruto chasing Sasuke. That got old really fast.

Ganta’s really improved on Crow’s training in such a short amount of time. Oh, boy. It’s the hero’s curse. Only when they’re finished training and are exhausted is when a near death situation comes along with hostages in tow and a very slim that he’ll come out of it alive.

I really got those Naruto vibes too. Or pretty much any shounen anime where they do ridiculous amounts of life-threatening training to get stronger. But it always seems to work somehow without killing them. Hmmm. I wonder how he’s going to fight in a state like that though.

I’m in love with this crazy prison. Now they’ve even broken Nagi. What are they doing to Shiro and Karako? Is that how they restrain and torture their hostages?

Fruitcakes all around especially with that potentially loose canon Mockingbird. He actually enjoys being there. I wonder if was in a bunch of penalty shows before he started winning matches because of those scars. He’s even got stitches on his forehead. Maybe they took part of his brain to make him crazy and explaining his unpridictible attitude.

He looks like someone who kills for sheer pleasure. Perhaps he should date that other sadistic psychopath Minatsuki with her new Misaka Mikoto style hairdo.

Either he lost and got punished or he just got hit a lot of times during battles. I really hope part of his brain isn’t missing, because how would he still be able to fight so well? /Neuroscience nerd so I care about these things.

Now that would be an interesting couple. XDD How long would they last before killing each other?

Lol. It depends on how long they would be able to stand each other. And if it no longer works out, they’ll gladly kill each other with a psycho smile on their faces. Just stay out of their way when it happens if you value your life. I would.

I have to admit I was kind of laughing when Mockingbird was going around molesting everyone. Since he looks so feminine, Crow was probably having a heart attack. And Ganta was just confused, as usual.

I can’t help but think Karako was a total moron this time around. C’mon, hun! You have a really recognizable accent, just keep your mouth shut for two minutes! And why should she care what happens to Shiro? Derp.

Holy Nagi. His face looked like someone had raped it with spyrograph. AND IT WAS SO SCAREH. His owl eyes continue to be awesome.

AWESOME episode! The animation on the character went up like 20% or higher ahahah great action to bad it’s near the end, reminds me of another series that started out slow kept moving slow and BOOOOOOOOM! At the end becomes great.

Ganta! Why did it take forever to learn your powers! Oh well you do need more training…

Seriously, Shiro got drunk with just a few liqeurs…So weak :3. I tought that she would be doing the “drunken fist” stance. To bad she just got beaten up, and to bad that this show is near it’s end… besides the fact that the animation isn’t really cool (The OP is awesome still) and the censorship being as shitty as always, it does have a good plot D:

I think that the prison idea has potencial to become something pretty interesting. Perhaps the plot itself just wasn’t broached up the right way in this adaptation… I Dunno.

The prison’s director (Tamaki) should have more screen time, I like his manners lol. And Ganta should face the reality and notice that not everybody has good intentions. I mean, the reality is not THAT nice at all. So stop crying and go rise & shine, boy. D: